 Yeah, this is Kauai Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland, Fridays at 3 p.m., keeping it on the bright side and off the grid. Last June, Carl Kim and I discussed possibilities for a mid-course correction on Honolulu's rail project, including bringing it to street level. You can find that show, along with all the others, at thinktechhawaii.com. My guest today is Scott Wilson, contributing author and spokesman for the Honolulu Transit Task Force. He is also the former chair of the AIA Regional and Urban Design Committee. Mr. Wilson is part of a group of Honolulu architects and planners who have come up with a brilliant wave to save three to four billion dollars, and our destination travel worthy view planes. Scott, thank you so much for coming down to talk to us. Very happy to be here. Oh, I'm so excited that this is really getting some traction. But it's a complicated thing. It is, and it's a big change. Even though it doesn't take that much time, really, and that we'll actually finish the job five years sooner, when we talked to legislators this morning, they were just all thinking, well, what about this, and what about that, because you're asking for a change. You're making modifications in a very big project. And this big project behind us. Yuck. It's so ugly. Please save us. I don't want to go into the ugliness, because aesthetics are a relative thing. But what we've really made the pitch for is to save billions of dollars, three billion or more, and to save time, to save five years, shaping five years off of construction is a huge thing. We've got computers that are just suffering, and every year that they have to just continue to put up with us is just a real shame. And so we have some pictures of what we're facing, what is planned. Right. We're looking at the Chinatown station, and that's what's planned right now at Kei-Kalike Street. And you can see that's right next to the harbor. And there's just no way to hide that thing. It's just a big hulk towering over Chinatown. All those little small little buildings are just going to be dwarfed by the scale of this thing, and this thing is cutting off their entire view to the harbor. Not only the view, we also know how these things tend to collect garbage and other unpleasantries and magnify the sound. I haven't really seen that in the literature, but I know that when I travel the places that have those systems, that that is a significant decrease in quality of life, just having the noise and the lights and all the trash. Yeah. So think of the viaduct at the airport. I mean, that is not a place where you want to go walking. It's not a place where you want to enjoy the sun and the wind and just our beautiful landscape. It's just all dwarfed by some massive amount of concrete. But there's a lot of really good reasons, practical reasons for this to change. And it seems doable. Let's have a picture of what we're actually talking about. So it could. Yeah. This is a perfect example of an elevated rail that is coming down to street level. And this is actually in Charlotte, North Carolina. I just like that because it shows it's not a big, great big distance. It's about five to 600 feet. And we have that kind of space, certainly in Middle Street and several other places. So it's not that the old ramp coming down is going to take a mile and is going to cut off five different streets. It's not that at all. It can come down very quickly. And then you're on the street level and you're saving billions of dollars. And you can see from this that it's very inclusive. There's easy access. It will be very visitor friendly because the access will be. I know. I just think if we want to talk about our handicapped or even mobility limited riders, what can be easier than just stepping in off of the sidewalk instead of going upstairs, going up escalators, elevators. All of that. All of those things are mechanical and are going to break down in our climate. We all know that. So we just think this is avoiding a lot of those problems. Okay, but we can't just translate it. There's some modifications that are gonna have to be made. Can you talk about those? Yeah, I think the one that I think has got most people confused is the power supply. We all know that the elevated rail is running on a third power rail that's right next to the other two rails. And that rail is live and can't be touched for electrocution reasons. So what happens, what would happen in Middle Street is basically that third rail would end and the trains would have what's called a pantograph, which is a kind of a scissor device that elevates up above the top of the car and touches a power wire up above. And that's been used for over 150 years. It's called a pantograph and it's a catenary power wire. So what happens is while people are getting off the train in Middle Street, the thing elevates, it only takes about five seconds. And then it's got power, off it goes, goes down to the street level. Okay, and there's no more difficult kind of infrastructure other than just the overhead lines. So basically we have to change the design of our current cars. And Soldo makes all of these different types of cars. So basically we have to go back to our contract with them and they have already delivered, as you know, four cars. But these cars are a $2 million item. So if we have to just set aside four cars and say, okay, that's $8 million worth of cars we can't use, that's a minor loss compared to the savings of $4 billion. True, so would each car need to have one of these categories? No, no, it's just one car per train. So now one of our changes is that we actually want to make the trains back to two cars long instead of four. There's no reason, the original hard design was for a two car train. And for some reason the ex-director Dan Grabouskas decided he wanted to make the trains bigger. He was kind of thinking in terms of long term ridership ability. But we're saying actually no, the two car train is fine. You just run it twice as often. He was going to do four cars at six minute intervals. We said no, go back to your first plan, two car trains at three minute intervals. The reason is because when you get into the streets and the short blocks in downtown, a four car train is too long. It laps over into intersections and it blocks intersections. But certainly from a rider's point of view, that's way better anyway. It's actually more convenient, yeah, to have trains twice as often. Would it actually limit ridership or reduce ridership? No, not at all. Ridership is not related to train size. It's just how many people want to get in on the train. And as more and more people decide to ride the train, you can just add trains in their frequency. Okay, so we have some great little mockups of how this would look in our downtown area. Let's see some of those. Okay, this one is on Hotel Street now. We're not advocating any particular route right now. One option is to run it down Hotel and just use the existing bus lanes. Because these trains are no bigger than a bus in terms of width and so forth. So that's a shot of what it would look like if we use the Hotel Street Transit corridor for trains as well as buses. That looks beautiful to me. And you can see how simple it is. Now this one does not show overhead wires. And Soldo does make an option for their trains in which you don't use overhead wires. You actually draw your power from underground. So you can, or you can even use a battery system. You can install batteries in your car that are basically charge up at the last station. And they can run for up to a mile with no power of their own. They're like an electric train. It's like a temporary electric train. So why did you, you did the cost estimates based on the overhead wire category system? Yeah, that's an equivalent cost. Whether it's an overhead power wire or it's an underground power wire, the cost is the same. And, you know, they're still vastly cheaper than all of that concrete, that enormous elevated guideway and those elevated stations with their escalators and their elevators and their security guards and all the lighting. So that's what really adds up the cost. It would seem that burying or having that underground would be a lot nicer then. And storm resilient, actually better. Yeah, it works well. There's no problem with rainwater and everything. They're insulated cables and they run under the ground. There's actually four different systems out there right now. All the different rail car manufacturers have their own version of wireless power. They call it wireless. But the ones that we already have on order, the system that we currently are sort of contractually wedded to, they do offer the in-ground version. Yes, they do. That's called tramwave. And it's Aldo tramwave system. And this has been out for, it came out in 2009. So it's been out now for eight years, yeah. And we have another picture of how it might look downtown. Oh, yes. I love that. It's cute. It's actually cute. How simple is that? This is King Street. This is putting a train basically in the bus lane of the existing bus lane. As we know, King Street is very wide through most of its length. And you can even make this an exclusive lane just for trains and buses if you want. And it really won't impact the traffic. We know that King Street has already been taken over for a bus lane, sorry, a bike lane for about three miles. So we know this street does have capacity. And certainly this kind of system has been vetted in places where there's lots of pedestrians and bicycle traffic for decades. So we're not inventing anything here. Yeah. The city has raised, oh, there's safety concerns. We've got what about dogs and people and bikes? Well, traffic in cities has been around for hundreds of years. And one of our links on our website is 28 other cities of our size, a million to two million, that have light rail systems. And so you can look at pictures of Baltimore, Austin, Portland, Seattle, you name it. And there are people walking around and there's cars and bikes and so forth. And it co-exists very easily. I've seen it in cities in Europe, actually, and it's just a part of the landscape. But we used to have it here. I was looking at a map of Honolulu in 1897 last night. It's downtown at Collier's International in their lobby if you want to go have it. And it shows the tramways. I mean, this is not even new. And weren't those in the center of the street? 1897. So actually, yeah, saying that we don't have space for a train is kind of nonsensical because these cities were laid out with trams way back in the 1890s. That map shows both railroad lines and tramways. So both. Wow. Yeah. And where I live in Manoa, they had street cars that went up all the way up University Avenue up into Kamehameha Avenue and then they did a turnaround in the middle of the valley. Scott, we're going to take a little break and then come back and talk about what kinds of possibilities this would open up for us. Great. Okay. Hi. I'm Tim Appichella. I'm the host for Moving Hawaii Forward. And this show is dedicated to transportation and traffic issues in Oahu. We are all frustrated by sitting in our cars in bumper to bumper traffic. And this show is dedicated to talking with folks that not only we can define the problem, but we hopefully can come to the table with some solutions. So I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 12 noon and let's move Hawaii forward. Aloha, Kako. I'm Marcia Joyner and I'm inviting you to navigate the journey. We are discussing the end of life options and we would really love to have you every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. right here. I'm back to Hawaii is my mainland. I'm Kaui Lucas and I am talking with Scott Wilson, architect and spokesperson for the Honolulu Transit Task Force. So we are talking about bringing that rail project back down to earth, saving taxpayers at least $3 billion and relieving our beautiful city of this horrible blight in the process. It's such a win-win. It does seem like it. I think when we went around to legislators this morning, they were like saying, oh, thank goodness there's an alternative. Oh, that's very encouraging. Yeah. So this is, I think, we want to talk about what can we do in the future. We're not backing a specific bill or specific routing right now, but we just need to bring up the idea that there is a plan B. We don't literally have to go with this current elevated rail, which is just too expensive. It's, that's kind of a big deal that there's no, there's no bill attached to this. Have you talked to the good folks at Honolulu-Hulley? Not yet. Okay. No. All right. Well, they're, they're kind of in their own little silo right now about rail and really one of the reasons we're at the legislature is because those folks are one step away from this project. It's not their project so much as it's a city project, but now they're being drawn into this because they're being asked to refund it for several more billion dollars. And this comes after they were already asked two years ago for a big hunk of money and they were promised, oh, that's all we need. That's all we will be done. We promise this will finish the whole job and now suddenly it's only bringing it to Middle Street. Okay. Can you say finish the whole job you're talking about from where to where? Well, the current plan is to finish it at Alamoana Center on Kona Street. It's just going to dead end into the buildings that cross over Kona Street. So this, this, this is one of my pet peeves is that if they try to extend this project to UH on Kona Street, they're going to run into three stories of retail shops and they have not said anything to the public about this. The fact that, oh yeah, we can extend it to UH. Well, in fact, it's going to be a super human project because they have to back up, build a whole new ramp that goes up to 90 feet and goes over all those retail shops. William Sonoma, all those designed within reach, all those ones. There's two whole levels of shops that cross over Kona Street. So you can't go right through those. That's a working shopping center, one of the biggest and busiest in the world. And that connection to UH Manoa is so critical. As we know, when Manoa is not in session, there's no traffic. Suddenly, the traffic is so much nicer. We're all going, wow, oh, it's just because it's a UH holiday. Exactly. And the mayor has candidly said, you know, we really should extend this to UH, but the other part of the story is that to extend it to UH the way it's built now is blindingly expensive. It would be the most expensive section of all. So you have a picture of what it would look like if it were going up to UH? Yes. If we just ran this up King Street, as you saw in the earlier slide, by King Kamehameha Statue, we just kept on King, even in just the simplest route possible, running to King. There it is in the downtown area. And again, the nice part about running it on King Street is that when people get off, they're right in where they need to be. They can just walk left or right and they're right immediately in their office building. They don't have to walk all the way up from Nimitz Highway. Right. And then it could be extended to UH Manoa. Right. Now, here's a shot. Now, you can see the overhead wires in this. And this was an earlier design where it was coming up University Avenue. It was actually going to go under the freeway and actually stop right at Bachman Hall. But you can easily imagine that the train is coming down King Street now, and then it just makes a big U-turn right at Molylili at Pucks Alley, and then it goes back on Baratania. And with all that new development that Kamehameha Schools is doing, right in that area, this is the perfect time to be planning and contemplating. The UH officials said, actually, we don't want the train coming right onto our campus. That's too close. Give it to us at Molylili and Pucks Alley. That's fine. The students can walk from there. Well, did they say that even when it was this? Yes, actually they did. Oh, that's surprising. You know, if you remember about five years ago, there were some simulations where it was going to go over the freeway and it was going to go all the way to Stan Sheriff's Center. The university quietly said, no, thank you. We don't want a train emptying out all kinds of people on our campus. Well, I understand that, but I was thinking if it was at grade and it was going up university or in there, that that might be a different. They did not react to that one. They never got that far. Okay. All right. So that is a possibility. Yeah, it is. Okay. I think the simplest way is actually just to come down university, drop everybody off at Molylili, and then just turn right around and go up Baratanya and back out to De'Eva. So that was my next question about the return route. The return route would be very similar to that shot you saw on King Street, except it would be on Baratanya. Because again, Baratanya is one way. It's got many lanes. It's got parking lanes that we can take out. And then you just run it all the way into town, all the way in Baratanya. And all the way past Alla Park. And then it would join in again at North King. And then you can decide whether you want to go on Dillingham or you want to go on North King. That's a fine point of the route that we can decide later. Okay. And you've talked about building this. We have an image of what it would like, what it takes. So tell us about this. Oh, yeah. Oh, this is, you could just imagine that those are all just local contractors. Because I mean, when you look at that kind of work where you're building a, you're putting steel rails into a concrete form that's about 14 inches deep. Well, that's something any local mason can do. This is not a multi-billion dollar keywood or outside mainland firm that has to be brought in because the work is so technical and difficult. This, the beautiful thing about this and the reason it can be built so quickly is you can actually have a dozen different companies working in different blocks. And they have one plan and then they just connect up their segments when they finish them up. It's so beautifully simple. Oh, the more I hear about this, the more excited I am. You just cut the steel, you weld it and it's done. You know, the trouble that with this elevated rail is that it's, those are all very customized segments. So you have to put in one segment first, then you can put in the second one, and then next. And so this thing has to be built very carefully and sequentially from start to the other end. And that's why it's going to take another eight years to get to Alamona. Well, those of us who don't regularly go out to couple A and haven't had to deal with the pain of the construction of that, I only have had to on occasion. But I was already unhappy about the situation. But when I saw that, that was the moment of truth. And I just said, well, this can't be. We can't do this to Honolulu. What have we done? I mean, I feel terrible for Waipahu and Pearl Ridge. And the real secret, Kaui, is that they haven't even built the stations yet. And if any of you have ever gone to Miami, Miami is the only elevated rail system in all of North America. That goes right through the center of a city. And it is just outrageously ugly. It's in a tropical environment similar to Honolulu. The concrete just molds and decays and stains, and it is so depressing. We had one member of our team go to Miami and take pictures of the elevated stations. And when we started showing them to us, we were cringing. Are those on the website? And tell us again about your website. The website is called salvagetherail.org. And it has lots of reports. It has videos that explain how street-level rail works. It has pictures of all these other cities that have street-level rail. It has many different reports. So if you want to read more, if you want to read the one-page version, you want to read the six-page version, the 20-page, and even the 60-page version. But we have studied light rail in Honolulu and all these different levels and agreed. And tell us, who is we? We, the Honolulu Transit Task Force, formerly known as the AIA Honolulu Transit Task Force. This was in 2009 to 2011. I was the chair. That once rail started being built, we basically disbanded and we formed the regional and urban design committee that I was also chair of from about 2011 to 2016. So it was a group of about between 12 and 20 architects and planners. They all belong to AIA Honolulu. However, in December, when we finally came out with our report, AIA Honolulu, as an organization, said, you know what, we're uncomfortable. We don't want to offend the mayor here. He's just been reelected. This is awkward because some of us have to get work from the city. So can we just quietly bury this report and you will zip your mouth and throw away the key? So we said, OK, as an organization, we understand you don't want to endorse this. We are going to go independent. So that same group of architects and some of them who had to stay anonymous. Now, some of them are listed on our website, but there's a group of them that are still anonymous because they're working with the city. It's so sad, but I know personally that I'm involved with an organization that went through that same process and didn't want to offend the mayor. So this is a great guy. Kirk, we're doing your work for you. We are a small town and I think we pride ourselves on our small townness. We are friendly. We like to work by consensus. We like everybody to be on the same page. And it's really awkward when there are some issues that we just cannot resolve. So in the last minute and a half, Scott, how can we support you? Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, I think the first thing is to visit our website and read up and get yourself familiar with this, that there's a very real option out there. Then the second thing to do is to contact your legislator. And that is we have a sample letter on our website. We would urge you read that through if you like the sound of it. It just says, dear legislator, we really would like to save money and time on the rail. We urge you to consider other alternatives and to reject the extension of the GT surcharge. That's where it starts. Because the city, if we just give them their money, they're going to say, okay, I'm done, you know, end of discussion. But if the legislators have the courage to say, wait a minute, we're not going to give you your money. You know what? We want you to look at the alternatives. Thank you, Scott. So our job is to, our homework is to go to salvagetherail.org and contact our legislators and tell them, do not approve the GT for extension for the rail. Exactly. Okay. And in the meantime, you'll be working with your awesome group and the legislatures and come up with a really good bill. Maybe not for this session because it's a little late. Yeah. But it'll happen. It will happen. All right.